Re: [tuning] Digest Number 1301

Hi John,

I'm surely missing something here, but would like to know the answer to
follow the discussion.

Wouldn't you perhaps need at least two step sizes for the semitone and two step
sizes for the tone? (Possibly more one could imagine).

With some kind of springs to say how equal one wanted the step sizes.

For example, you can't have a twelve tone chromatic scale with a good
j.i. minor and major third unless you have at least two sizes
of semitone (because one size will mean you have to have 12-tet to span
the octave, assuming keeping pure octaves is favoured strongly).

To take an example which must be obvious, and shows I'm missing something:

Meantone scales have two sizes of semitone, e.g. quarter comma meantone
has 76.05 cents and 117.1 cents.

This is all pretty theoretical for me as I am very happy listening to music
with uneven step sizes, and thought the Chopin fine just as it was.

If retuning it with melodic springs I'd want to relax them all the way to
have no effect.

However, would be interesting to see what difference they do make,
and what it sounds like with them, and sounds like an intriguing
development.

Could be interesting to do it for larger step sizes too. Motivation
this time would be that each time a melodic phrase is played,
one wants it to have identical leaps (and assumption, if there are
two sizes for each leap, harmonization will favour the same
one each time??) Though, there is also something to be said
for having variations in the tuning of a melodic phrase
each time it is played too I think, and one could custom
that with the melodic springs.

I wonder if you could also try, for fun, making the step size distinctions even
larger by reversing the sign for the melodic springs, if this makes sense,
and see what happens, might be interesting in context of adaptive
j.i.

Robert

[Robert Walker wrote:]
>I'm surely missing something here, but would like to know the answer to
>follow the discussion.

>Wouldn't you perhaps need at least two step sizes for the semitone and
>two step sizes for the tone? (Possibly more one could imagine).

>With some kind of springs to say how equal one wanted the step sizes.

>For example, you can't have a twelve tone chromatic scale with a good
>j.i. minor and major third unless you have at least two sizes
>of semitone (because one size will mean you have to have 12-tet to span
>the octave, assuming keeping pure octaves is favoured strongly).

>To take an example which must be obvious, and shows I'm missing
>something:

>Meantone scales have two sizes of semitone, e.g. quarter comma meantone
>has 76.05 cents and 117.1 cents.

What you say is true, and uneven sizes are mandated by strong harmonic
considerations much of the time. But suppose a piece, along with lots
of harmonically mandating chords, also has a bare glissando. Here,
other than grounding considerations pulling each scale degree toward a
consistent point, there is nothing to block an evening out of the
melodic steps. Here, too, unevenness, when present, is most starkly
revealed to the ear.

As with everything I do in tuning, it's a matter of finding the best
tradeoff among semi-contradictory desires. We want well-tuned chords
but we also want (or some do some of the time) even steps.

Note that what I'm planning to do will not concern itself with steps
between scale degrees which do not actually take place in the sequence.
Thus, the odd scale degrees across a meantone wolf, if they are not
used in the sequence, will not distort the ideal scale degree calculated
for that sequence.

>This is all pretty theoretical for me as I am very happy listening to
>music with uneven step sizes, and thought the Chopin fine just as it
>was.

Kyool. Have you heard the 7-limit version of the Gershwin "Rhapsody in
Blue"? An MP3 of it is on the Tuning Punks, and I'll send you a MIDI
version if you're interested. I hear objectionably uneven steps in
places; I'd be very curious to know if you do as well.

>If retuning it with melodic springs I'd want to relax them all the way
>to have no effect.

That will always be an option.

>I wonder if you could also try, for fun, making the step size
>distinctions even larger by reversing the sign for the melodic springs,
>if this makes sense, and see what happens, might be interesting in
>context of adaptive j.i.

Robert, you're a "badder boy" than I even realized! I think that
negative spring coefficients would make the matrix unstable, however,
because a node becomes pushed to one side or the other rather than being
pulled toward the best compromise. I guess you could get away with them
if they were used carefully, but there'd be a danger of the matrix going
unstable - more push away the farther one gets.

JdL

--- In tuning@y..., "John A. deLaubenfels" <jdl@a...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#22649

> Kyool. Have you heard the 7-limit version of the Gershwin
> "Rhapsody in Blue"? An MP3 of it is on the Tuning Punks,
> and I'll send you a MIDI version if you're interested.
> I hear objectionably uneven steps in places; I'd be very
> curious to know if you do as well.

Prodded by this post, I'm listening once again to your
wonderful version of _Rhapsody in Blue_, John. As might
be expected after my statement that comma shifts usually
don't bother me, I can say that I hear no "objectionably
uneven" steps here. I love it!

If there's anything that IMO would make this particular
file sound better, it would be a better approximation to
some higher-limit harmonics, particularly 19:16.

I'd like to hear versions of _Rhapsody_ where 19:16 is
the only additional target interval alongside the 7-limit
ones you've already used, and also other versions where
the primes in between are included too. My suspicion is
that the 7...19-limit version (the former idea) would sound
best of all, to my ears anyway.

PS - Thanks heaps for retuning all that old stuff of mine.
I'm slowly mulling over how each piece sounds. They'll
eventually go up on my website, either "as is" or retuned
by hand based on your results.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#22650

> Prodded by this post, I'm listening once again to your
> wonderful version of _Rhapsody in Blue_, John. <snip>

Just thought of another thing to make _Rhapsody_ sound
even better. Since it's the solo piano version, how about
including a stretch factor, so that high pitches are tuned
sharper than the regular adaptive-JI and low pitches tuned
flatter?

The file just got to the part where the big slow theme
comes in, and those luscious chords still have some
unattractive beating, simply because the piano timbre's
harmonics (overtones) don't match up.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

[I wrote:]
>>Kyool. Have you heard the 7-limit version of the Gershwin
>>"Rhapsody in Blue"? An MP3 of it is on the Tuning Punks,
>>and I'll send you a MIDI version if you're interested.
>>I hear objectionably uneven steps in places; I'd be very
>>curious to know if you do as well.

[Monz wrote:]
>Prodded by this post, I'm listening once again to your
>wonderful version of _Rhapsody in Blue_, John. As might
>be expected after my statement that comma shifts usually
>don't bother me, I can say that I hear no "objectionably
>uneven" steps here. I love it!

Interesting; in our very small sample so far, there's about 50:50 on
either side of the "objectionably uneven" fence.

>If there's anything that IMO would make this particular
>file sound better, it would be a better approximation to
>some higher-limit harmonics, particularly 19:16.

In minor triads specifically, I presume? That's come up before, and I
could probably do it with a new set of tuning files, carefully balanced
against each other.

>I'd like to hear versions of _Rhapsody_ where 19:16 is
>the only additional target interval alongside the 7-limit
>ones you've already used, and also other versions where
>the primes in between are included too. My suspicion is
>that the 7...19-limit version (the former idea) would sound
>best of all, to my ears anyway.

With 12-tET input, even 7-limit interpretations become difficult due to
ambiguity of possible meaning. Still, a carefully targeted 16:19:24
would be possible to achieve, I think.

>PS - Thanks heaps for retuning all that old stuff of mine.
>I'm slowly mulling over how each piece sounds. They'll
>eventually go up on my website, either "as is" or retuned
>by hand based on your results.

You're welcome!

>Just thought of another thing to make _Rhapsody_ sound
>even better. Since it's the solo piano version, how about
>including a stretch factor, so that high pitches are tuned
>sharper than the regular adaptive-JI and low pitches tuned
>flatter?

>The file just got to the part where the big slow theme
>comes in, and those luscious chords still have some
>unattractive beating, simply because the piano timbre's
>harmonics (overtones) don't match up.

Another thing I've been meaning to do! It's non-trivial, only because
the process of re-assigning channels is suddenly different. Up till
now, I always assign two simultaneous C's to the same channel,
regardless of the octave they're in. In order to stretch with pitch
bends, channels become even more scarce: pretty much every note needs
its own channel.

Once the channels are assigned, and the analysis is done, actually
applying stretch is not difficult. Do you remember where you and
another list member discussed a function, rather uniform in the center
and more extreme at each end of the keyboard, for ideal stretch?

JdL

--- In tuning@y..., "John A. deLaubenfels" <jdl@a...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#22659

> > [me, monz, re: John's 7-limit _Rhapsody in Blue_]
> >
> > If there's anything that IMO would make this particular
> > file sound better, it would be a better approximation to
> > some higher-limit harmonics, particularly 19:16.
>
> In minor triads specifically, I presume?

NO!!!! Damn, I should have realized you'd think that, and
should've been more specific.

To my ears, one of the most awesomely beautiful chords is
an otonal 4:6:10:14:19, the notorious "Jimi Hendrix chord".

Here, the "sharp 9th" or "flat 10th" (the former description
is the more "correct", but many musicians call it by the
latter) sounds great to me when tuned to the 19th harmonic.

Paul Erlich and I had a big debate about this when I first
joined the list 3 years ago, concerning whether Hendrix's
playing of this chord most strongly implied a 19:16 or a
7:6, or something else. It resulted in my (never really
finished) piece "Hendrix Chord":
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hendrix.htm

There are several audio excerpts from this. The most
pertinent one to this discussion is:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hndrx-ex.mid

There are several places in _Rhapsody in Blue_ where Gershwin
uses complex chords like this, and I think they'd sound
great with a 5/4 "major 3rd" and 19/16 "sharp 9th/flat 10th".

If you like "Hendrix Chord", check out this excerpt:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hendrix.mid

The part at 7:45 is the imitation of Jimi's recording
(complete with sliding-across-the-frets noise), and
at 8:00 it slows down a little; in these sections I tune
the "sharp 9th" to Paul's 7/6. Then, at 8:11 I bend
a little more to reach 19/16. I love the funky sound
of this!

My feeling is that in microtonal jazz (and sometimes rock,
like Hendrix), when complex chords pile up, they are much
more likely to be implying an otonal stack, rather than
some kind of utonal chord. The more sounding chord-members,
the more likely an otonal orientation is implied... that's
my rule-of-thumb.

> Do you remember where you and another list member

It was Allan Myhara.

> discussed a function, rather uniform in the center and
> more extreme at each end of the keyboard, for ideal stretch?

The original message, with links to all the follow-up posts, is:
/tuning/topicId_13830.html#13830

The message with the Excel math formula is:
/tuning/topicId_13830.html#13895

And the graph is:
/tuning/files/monz/rhodes.jpg

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com
"All roads lead to n^0"

[Monz wrote:]
>>> If there's anything that IMO would make this particular
>>> file sound better, it would be a better approximation to
>>> some higher-limit harmonics, particularly 19:16.

[I wrote:]
>>In minor triads specifically, I presume?

[Monz:]
>NO!!!! Damn, I should have realized you'd think that, and
>should've been more specific.

>To my ears, one of the most awesomely beautiful chords is
>an otonal 4:6:10:14:19, the notorious "Jimi Hendrix chord".

>Here, the "sharp 9th" or "flat 10th" (the former description
>is the more "correct", but many musicians call it by the
>latter) sounds great to me when tuned to the 19th harmonic.

Mmmm. It'd be tough to target this chord, with my present methodology,
without distorting less stacked chords, I think. Do you _also_ want
minor triads tuned with 19?

[JdL:]
>>Do you remember where you and another list member

>It was Allan Myhara.

>>discussed a function, rather uniform in the center and
>>more extreme at each end of the keyboard, for ideal stretch?

>The original message, with links to all the follow-up posts, is:
>/tuning/topicId_13830.html#13830

>The message with the Excel math formula is:
>/tuning/topicId_13830.html#13895

>And the graph is:
>/tuning/files/monz/rhodes.jpg

Wow, I'm impressed at your record-keeping! I'm going up to check it out
now.

JdL

On 5/13/01 3:57 PM, "monz" <joemonz@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Paul Erlich and I had a big debate about this when I first
> joined the list 3 years ago, concerning whether Hendrix's
> playing of this chord most strongly implied a 19:16 or a
> 7:6, or something else. It resulted in my (never really
> finished) piece "Hendrix Chord":

Really, all of these thoughts I haven't had in 10 years.
And all for lack of someone out there to...
(enough already.)

Paul? ::blink:: ahh my eyes **WAIT**

When I first tried playing Purple Haze in 22,
it was so ensanguinating I think my gums bled.
Crept in, that sort of dimmed nightclubbish vibe
to Paul's Microthon 2000 improvs...
and I just had this vision...
Purple Haze played in that sort of bossa-nova
well, ehh, techno-beatnik
AAAA man I can see it... yeahhh
That old SNL gag of Bill Murray as a lounge singer,
Paul Shaeffer poking at an Optigan sound in the background.
(that watery hilite of 1975 drive-in intermissions...)

Cool daddy-o. ::snap snap snap::
Alternative to Bill Murray,
possibly Joe Pesci doing just that,
reading it as a beatnik poem along with the Optigan...
POIPLE HAZE... ALL IN MY #$*&^@# BRAIN...
Now it's just plain Andrew Dice Clay.

Paul - ever play Purple Haze in 22 ... ?
(you must have, We know, Natasha says so)
How did you attack it ?
Full force? Laid back?

That's so cool you can play like that
without your shoulders wiggling.
I just can't desensitize myself to early Beatles.
No matter how hard I don't try.

anon., et al.

p.s. of course i meant We played it as (0,7,18,5)/22.

--- In tuning@y..., "Orphon Soul, Inc." <tuning@o...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#22727

> When I first tried playing Purple Haze in 22,
> it was so ensanguinating I think my gums bled.
> Crept in, that sort of dimmed nightclubbish vibe
> to Paul's Microthon 2000 improvs...
>
> ...
>
> Paul - ever play Purple Haze in 22 ... ?
> (you must have, We know, Natasha says so)
> How did you attack it ?
> Full force? Laid back?
>
> That's so cool you can play like that
> without your shoulders wiggling.
> I just can't desensitize myself to early Beatles.
> No matter how hard I don't try.

You might be interested in my mp3 of the Beatles's
_Glass Onion_ in 22-EDO, done at Paul's instigation:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/beatles/glasson2.mp3

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

--- In tuning@y..., "Orphon Soul, Inc." <tuning@o...> wrote:
>
> Paul - ever play Purple Haze in 22 ... ?
> (you must have, We know, Natasha says so)
> How did you attack it ?
> Full force? Laid back?

I'll try it on my green guitar
And let you know how it comes out.

> That's so cool you can play like that
> without your shoulders wiggling.

Maybe a little wiggling
would clear up the arthritis.

> I just can't desensitize myself to early Beatles.
> No matter how hard I don't try.

Yes, yes, you're gonna lose that girl (the one with the nice dress).

--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#22688

> Paul Erlich and I had a big debate about this when I first
> joined the list 3 years ago, concerning whether Hendrix's
> playing of this chord most strongly implied a 19:16 or a
> 7:6, or something else. It resulted in my (never really
> finished) piece "Hendrix Chord":
> http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hendrix.htm
>
> There are several audio excerpts from this. The most
> pertinent one to this discussion is:
> http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hndrx-ex.mid
>

Monzo is amazing...

_________ _______ _____ ____
Joseph Pehrson

On 5/14/01 7:55 PM, "paul@stretch-music.com" <paul@stretch-music.com> wrote:

> Maybe a little wiggling
> would clear up the arthritis.

No no... shoulders stiff and play 19.
I need to do this myself.
I keep forgetting what's at stake.
If it's more muscles than that hurting, play 50.

You probably can't tell by the font or verbiage
but I'm dead serious.
This is some of the stuff We actually know.
We can't figure out this Miracle thing for the life of Us.

Do you ever get fevers or migraines? (playing 22)

Marc &c.

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#23049

> --- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_22604.html#22688
>
>
> > Paul Erlich and I had a big debate about this when I first
> > joined the list 3 years ago, concerning whether Hendrix's
> > playing of this chord most strongly implied a 19:16 or a
> > 7:6, or something else. It resulted in my (never really
> > finished) piece "Hendrix Chord":
> > http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hendrix.htm
> >
> > There are several audio excerpts from this. The most
> > pertinent one to this discussion is:
> > http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/hendrix/hndrx-ex.mid
> >
>
> Monzo is amazing...
>
> _________ _______ _____ ____
> Joseph Pehrson

Thanks, Joe!! So many good reviews bombarding me at once!

Hmmm... wanna be my agent?... ;-)

(Actually, if anyone seriously *does* want to be, I could
really use one!)

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_22604.html#23075

> >
> > Monzo is amazing...
> >
> > _________ _______ _____ ____
> > Joseph Pehrson
>
>
> Thanks, Joe!! So many good reviews bombarding me at once!
>
> Hmmm... wanna be my agent?... ;-)

I thought I just *DID* that! :)

_______ _______ ________
Joseph Pehrson